Welcome! This is a home for informal news about what's new and upcoming at Metropix. We'll post the sort of things that get us excited, like when our customers get mentioned in the press, or if we're releasing a great new feature. So if you'd like to keep up to date, or even contribute your own thoughts in the comments, you've come to the right place!

April 21, 2016

Metropix has been recognised for its outstanding customer service to its clients by the largest and longest running award scheme in the UK residential property industry. The ESTAS determines the best suppliers in the industry through research carried out amongst their clients who are asked a series of questions about the service they have received from their suppliers. This years’ competition saw over 30,000 surveys completed.

As well as making the Shortlist Supplier list and taking away a ‘Best in Sector ‘ award Metropix were presented with a Bronze award in the Supplier of the Year category.

Simon Brown, Founder of The ESTAS said “The ESTAS are special because shortlisted and winning firms are selected purely on the service they deliver to their clients. In fact just taking part shows a firm’s commitment to their customers so to be shortlisted is a great achievement in itself and for the winners this is the highest accolade they can receive in the industry.”

Jon Notley, Chief Commercial Officer of headline sponsor Zoopla added, “This is our sixth year sponsoring The ESTAS and we are delighted to be once again supporting this key industry event. Customer feedback is essential to any organisation and it is fantastic to see the best in the industry being recognised for their efforts. Many congratulations to all of this year’s winners.”

Steve Sanashee, Customer Relations Manager of Metropix said “We are absolutely thrilled with our achievement at this year’s ESTAS. It’s fantastic to win the floor plan award itself, but to come away with the Bronze award for overall supplier makes this an extra special accomplishment for us.”

“We have some exciting projects lined up, which we will be sure to share with our customers soon. Our commitment to first class service, training and support to every customer remains the highest priority to us and we’re relishing the challenge of retaining both awards, through the endorsement of our loyal customers.”

“With awards reliant on customer votes and scores, we would like to say an enormous ‘thank you’ to all of our customers who took the time to make this possible for us”.

April 02, 2016

We are proud to have once again been recognised for our outstanding customer service to clients by the largest and longest running award scheme in the UK residential property industry:

The ESTAS (sponsored by Zoopla) determines the best agents and suppliers in the UK through research carried out amongst customers who are asked a series of questions about the service they have received from their agent or supplier.

This year saw record entries making the competition the toughest yet and one of the biggest surveys in the UK property industry with just over 30,000 customers completing one of the online questionnaires.

The supplier categories are sponsored by Angels Media publishers of Estate and Letting Agent Today and provider of ValPal. Angels Media chief executive Nat Daniels says: “These record figures show just how far the ESTAS have come, they also demonstrate how keen clients are to provide feedback. Client feedback provides agents and suppliers with a useful way of measuring up to their competitors as well as highlighting how they can improve their service in the future. We're very excited for this year's biggest ever event at the new venue."

Fifteen supplier firms have made this year’s shortlist across various product sectors. The ‘Best in Sector’ and ‘Supplier of the Year’ will be announced by TV property expert Phil Spencer. The 13th annual ESTAS ceremony is to be held for the first time at the Grosvenor House Hotel where 1,000 of the UK’s top property professionals will gather to see the winners announced. Spencer said “Any firm that enters The ESTAS has already sent a clear message that they are passionate about customer service so to make it on to the shortlist is a huge achievement in itself”.

Simon Brown, founder of the awards says “Its client feedback which determines who is shortlisted and ultimately who wins that makes The ESTAS so valuable. We’ve introduced categories for conveyancers, mortgage brokers and developers so The ESTAS now recognises the best firms across the whole of residential property sector.”

March 02, 2016

The Home Moving Trends Survey for 2015 flagged some really interesting trends. Over 5,400 sellers were polled and provided some great insights into the reasons they are moving, what they are looking for from estate agents, their conveyancers and much more.

By the very nature of what we do here at Metropix, we were of course drawn to two questions that related to floor plans.

The first asked how important floor plans are when selling your property, and 80% of respondents said ‘Essential’ or ‘Very Useful’ – in fact almost half (49%) said essential. Then, with their ‘buyer’ hat on, the respondents were asked just how important floor plans are when searching for a new home. The numbers are even more conclusive with 86% of those saying ‘Essential’ or ‘Very Useful’ – this time with 59% hitting the ‘essential’ button.

There is no denying that the demand for floor plans is there – sellers and buyers greatly value having access to a floor plan to help both market their own homes for sale (as they understand what potential buyers want to see), or to help them in assessing a property’s viability for their own needs.

If you’re not already offering them as standard, these stats hopefully provide a strong enough ‘pro’ argument as to why you really should… and, if you are already, well a big pat on the back to you for delivering just what home sellers and buyers really want.

February 17, 2016

It only seems like yesterday that we announced how seven million floor plans have been drawn using Metropix… well here we are today announcing that we are now up to a staggering eight million floor plans!

This now means that there are eight million floor plans in the Metropix PLANBANK – an archive of plans that can be used as a template for agents looking to create a plan in a jiffy. And, what’s more, PLANBANK is available to all monthly subscribers at no additional charge.

Simply search a postcode, pick a similar floor plan from the list of results, open it up and amend as required … bingo!

We are pleased to report that the eight millionth plan was produced by the Oxford branch of Premier Residential Sales & Lettings, which is an independent family firm specialising in sales, long and short term lettings, student lettings, property management and property valuation.

"We have used Metropix for a number of years now and cannot fault the software." Says Charlie Bartlett, Partner at Premier.

"It has given us the edge over our competitors many times as we are able to get their property on the market within 24 hours of receiving instruction along with outstanding floor plans – many of them opt for the 3D plans which really do stand out!"

"My team find the software very easy to use and feedback has always been very positive. We were delighted to be the Agent to create the 8,000,000th floor plan and our very tasty cookie did not last long at all once my team got their hands on it!"

Premier have recently celebrated an expansion to their already successful business, having launched a dedicated sales division to accompany their strong lettings offering.

Some of the Premier team pictured below, before they got stuck in to one of our famous giant cookies!

February 11, 2016

We have charted the top five agents who clocked up the most Space Planner floor plan views during 2015. As such, we are pleased to announce the agents who have come out on top… does your agency feature?

Congratulations Ashtons Estate Agency!

We are seeing an increasing number of agents using our free Space Planner tool, with over 3,000 plans now being produced on average every month. We originally launched Space Planner to help give agents a new perspective on floor plans – via our service, the tool allows prospective purchasers and tenants to drag-and-drop furniture into a floor plan of a property to see how they might actually live in it.

It’s a fantastic value-added service that agents can offer to their viewers, and is available at no additional cost too – bonus!

Space Planner – Key Features:

Drag and drop a huge library of furniture into floor plans

Easily adapt the size and position of each piece to suit individual needs

Option to view plan and furnishings in either 2D or 3D format

Enable prospective buyers and tenants to interact with the plan, to see how the might live in the property

Allows agents to offer access to the online furnishing tool as a new value-added service

Ability to save or print plans with furniture included.

Congratulations to those already taking advantage of Space Planner and, for those not featuring on the chart, do please call us if you’d like to receive a free demo.

February 02, 2016

The Channel 4 series, Location Location Location continues to attract large audiences. Over 2.3m viewers regularly tune-in for their weekly dose of virtual house viewings with the charming property experts Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsop.

In the last edition, viewers were treated to an added extra: not only have map views of the areas they visit gone interactive, but Metropix floor plans were beamed onto the screen to give viewers a visual representation of the properties they were about to visit. What a treat!

By providing a floor plan, it enabled viewers to have a clear understanding of the layout of each property and to understand just how the rooms flowed and connected together.

When it comes to buying and selling houses, location is of course important on many fronts, however the fact remains that photos and floor plans greatly aid the marketing process and ultimately help potential buyers work out exactly how the property will suit their current and future needs, before embarking on a viewing.

November 02, 2015

November and December are always a busy time in the property industry’s event calendar with a number of conferences, events and awards dos coming up.

We find they are a great way for us to meet up with both new and familiar faces, as well as for you to meet our team to ask any questions you might have about our floor planning tools, over a drink or two.

We thought we would give you the low-down on where we are planning to be over the next few weeks, so if you’re planning to attend any of these, do please come by our stand to say hello! It’s always great to put a face to a name, or even a face to a Twitter username that we regularly talk to!

October 06, 2015

Hooray! Metropix is on the voting list for the ESTAS 2016 Supplier award!

The awards offer you the chance to vote for the supplier who you believe has helped make your business a success by delivering an all-round positive service to customers during the last year.

When Metropix launched ten years ago, the ethos has always been around providing clients with a great overall experience – whether it’s using our floor plan drawing tool, through to calling us up with a question. We strive to provide a service that is valued by our clients on all levels: a ‘ten out of ten’ experience!

If you feel the team here at Metropix has helped you and your organisation, we would be grateful for your vote.

September 29, 2015

We joined Twitter back in April 2009 and in that time we have been tweeting, retweeting, sharing and liking many posts and updates, as well as making sure we connect with our customers and the wider property industry.

This month, we spotted we had reached the milestone of having 4,000 followers on Twitter, which works out to an average of 666 followers joining us every year… how devilishly good!

To mark the occasion, we asked followers to retweet a message and, for those that did, we would pick five at random to win the prize of a giant Millies cookie. The winners have been duly picked, announced and prizes sent – and dare I say, cookies already devoured!

Well done to our winners:

Stronachs

Victor Michael

McCartneys

Conveyancing Data Services

Pygott & Crone

Thanks for entering our little draw and, of course, a wider ‘thank you’ needs to go out to everyone: all 4,000 (well, 4,028 now to be precise!) for keeping in touch with us on our social networks! Top tweeting!

We joined Twitter back in April 2009 and in that time we have been tweeting, retweeting, sharing and liking many posts and updates, as well as making sure we connect with our customers and the wider property industry.

This month, we spotted we had reached the milestone of having 4,000 followers on Twitter, which works out to an average of 666 followers joining us every year… how devilishly good!

To mark the occasion, we asked followers to retweet a message and, for those that did, we would pick five at random to win the prize of a giant Millies cookie. The winners have been duly picked, announced and prizes sent – and dare I say, cookies already devoured!

Well done to our winners:

Stronachs

Victor Michael

McCartneys

Conveyancing Data Services

Pygott & Crone

Thanks for entering our little draw and, of course, a wider ‘thank you’ needs to go out to everyone: all 4,000 (well, 4,028 now to be precise!) for keeping in touch with us on our social networks! Top tweeting!